I've had my Nexus 7 dock for several weeks now and have used it as a convenient place to charge the 7 overnight while running TuneIn as my radio alarm. This works really well and I have already ditched the vhf radio alarm. The only drawback is that the sound quality from the 7 is not great, not surprising really as the speakers must be very small.
I hadn't tried the sound connector on the dock for lack of something suitable to plug into it that would also fit on my bedside table but then I found the X-Mi X Mini on Amazon - and then I discovered the very similar Pop Up Portable Mini Travel II, also on Amazon, for only £5.99 delivered. At this price it seemed worth a try - and it proved to be a good decision.
I first tried it on my Nexus 4 phone and it worked well; then I plugged it directly into the nexus 7 and it was a great improvement in sound quality and volume. But then I tried it plugged into the dock and... WOW! The pogo pins are obviously not just the same as the headphone socket, they must produce a much better level of signal as the quality was much, much better as well as much louder. The dock sound connectors provide real hi-fi quality out.
I still have a problem though. For my radio alarm I can't leave the little speaker switched on all night as it would use up the 5 hour battery before morning and the slight hiss might keep me awake. So I have to switch it off, change the dock setting on my 7 back to it's own speakers and then when I'm woken with the poor sound from the 7 I switch the speaker back on and go into settings to set the sound back to the dock.
Why didn't Asus make a dock with speakers already in? If I can buy one for £5.99 delivered it must cost next to nothing to incorporate 1 or even 2 (for stereo) of these little wonders into the dock itself. Then the dock could switch them off when no sound output is there and back on when my radio alarm starts up.
Come on Asus - or someone else in China. There would be a great demand for such a product - I'll put my name down for two immediately! failing that, maybe the manufacturers of this wonder device could incorporate something to switch off the amp when there is no sound input?
Anyone else found solutions to this?
